Rocket Ship
by BirdieGoBoom
Summary: With some help, Santa must move an unconscious Snake to the chapel, only to discover something very disturbing...   Contains Original Characters and slight OC x Cannon Character pairings, as well as spoilers for those who have not completed the game.


**Here is a short explanation about a couple of things in the story before we begin.**

**The idea for this story actually came from a LARP that I participated in with AkumaRin.**

**Nana (Rokka Hongou) is an Original Character that belongs to the user AkumaRin, and replaced Seven in our LARP as bracelet 7. She is in on the plot behind the Nonary Game, and is helping Santa execute part of said plan in the story.**

**Nonalee (Yukie Utanaga) is an Original Character that belongs to the user BirdieGoBoom, and sort of replaced the 9th Man in our LARP as bracelet 9.**

**Fun fact! In it's original context, this story was comprised of 9 pages and 1999 words.**

* * *

><p><em><strong>Rocket Ship<strong>_

…

With a grunt, Santa hoisted Snake over his shoulder, and began to move down the hallway, being absolutely sure to stay silent. Any wrong move could prove detrimental to the plan, and he wasn't willing to risk any mistakes.

"Santa, wait." The sudden sound of Nana's voice jolted the silver-haired male from his thoughts, and he stopped dead in his tracks.

"_What?_" His whisper sounded oddly like a hiss, though it carried no undertone of annoyance or malice.

"Snake's feet are dragging on the floor…"

Santa turned his head to the left and looked back as far as he could. Snake's legs limply hung behind him, and his feet touched the ground at an awkward angle. "Oh… Guess you're right. Mind givin' me a hand here?"

Nana gave a simple nod, moved behind Santa, and carefully held up Snake's legs.

"…Damn guy just has to be so fuckin' tall with his big hands…" Santa's angry grumbling morphed into a series of incoherent mumblings as the two continued on towards the big hospital room.

Nana had to force herself to stifle a giggle without the assistance of her hands, since they were currently occupied.

Before long, the ominous double doors of their destination loomed before them. The blond-haired woman softly let go of Snake's legs, and moved around Santa to open the door and allow them passage into the next room. They crossed the threshold and shut themselves in, releasing relieved sighs as they did so.

"Alright. Now we've just gotta' get Snake down to the chapel and-" Santa stopped mid-sentence after observing Nana's pained expression. "You okay?"

"Well, it's just that…" Her voice trailed off, and she could not bring herself to meet his piercing gaze. "It just doesn't seem right to take Snake away from them…"

Both persons had paused in front of the elevator that would take them down to E-Deck, their destination.

"What do you mean 'them'?" Santa questioned. "You just mean Clover, right?"

Nana fiddled with the chain around her neck, though it could only be a substitute for what was hidden underneath, inaccessible. "No, not just Clover. There's… someone else."

"Who the hell are you talkin' ab-"

"Nonalee." She interjected, already knowing what he was going to ask. "Snake and Nonalee are engaged, just like us. I know that she's going to think he's dead behind door three, and I can't help but imagine how I'd feel if something like that ever happened to you. …It's a terrible way to lose the person you love most."

Santa shuddered. What if Nana had been murdered in such a vile, grotesque fashion? An image of the scenario worked its way into his mind, despite his efforts to stifle it: behind the divider she laid, scarlet blood soaking her white dress and dying it a deep shade of pink. Her neck was twisted into an unnatural position, and a single, empty blue eye stared back at him. The force of the explosion had shattered the other side of her head, spattering the walls with bits of skin and strands of golden hair in addition to the excess of blood. Nana's organs spilled out from the maw in her chest, forming a sort of puddle on the floor…

Suddenly, Santa gagged.

"What's wrong?" Nana asked, concern under toning her voice. "Did you just-"

"Yeah," he took a deep breath, and then shook his head, "it was…bad." Santa tried to hide the sudden grief that clouded his eyes. "Listen. There's no point in getting upset. I mean, by, uh…kidnapping Snake, we're saving him from _that_ asshole."

"Guess you're right…" Nana's reply was a thin whisper; she remained unconvinced by Santa's words.

"We can't waste any more time thinking about it. Let's go." He called the elevator by pressing a button set into the wall, and the grinding of machinery issued from below. The doors parted before them, and Santa motioned for Nana to board first. His sudden display of chivalry was somewhat surprising to her, but pleasantly so. She took advantage of his gracious offer before it expired.

Santa and Nana spent the entirety of the ride to E-Deck in utter silence; they were both too enraptured within their own thoughts to speak. A shrill ding emanated from the elevator, heralding their arrival to their desired floor and snapping them out of their separate reveries. For a moment, Nana merely stared into the depths of his stone-grey eyes. At first glance, they appeared cold and emotionless, but there was something…more. Beyond their mask of detachment lay a sea of melancholy. She quickly tore her eyes away, unable to bear the thought of his anguish, and the harsh reality that she was part of the cause.

"You're just gonna stand there? Hurry the hell up!" Santa had already disembarked from the elevator and started down the hallway. He had called out to Nana from a few feet away after realizing that she had not followed.

Nana uttered no response. She simply ran to catch up with him, her high-heeled shoes clicking against the hard floor as she did so. The blond woman resumed her position behind Santa, holding onto Snake's legs to prevent them from trailing on the floor. It was sad, depressing even, to see someone in such a vulnerable state. Snake hung limply over Santa's left shoulder; he would have appeared dead were it not for the constant rising and falling of his chest. He looked, Nana thought, almost like a child's ragdoll.

"This is it." Santa stopped in front of a plain, metal door.

Without being asked to do so, Nana released Snake's legs and once again opened the door for Santa. Both people then continued inside, closing the door after they entered.

The silver-haired male and his companion each took a moment to survey their surroundings, though they had been in the room many times before. A red carpet ran the length of the room, spanning from a large set of double doors to an alcove on the other end. Two rows of neatly positioned pews stood on either side of the area, facing in the direction of the alcove, which held a modest sized altar. The muted glow of candlelight illuminated the dais, and a large, wooden coffin that rested there. The most prominent features of the room, however, were two sets of wooden doors. One was the set of double doors at the end of the carpet, and the other was a single door fixed into a rectangular section of wall that jutted out near the recess that held the altar. Both of them bore a single number, roughly emblazoned in red paint: 9. Nine was the salvation of all of those who were forced to play the Nonary Game, and yet Nine could also twist their fates into tragedies.

"So we finally made it to the chapel…" Nana murmured, almost inaudibly.

"Ugg, finally!" Santa breathed a sigh of relief as he set Snake down onto one of the pews. "Carrying people does a freakin' number on your shoulders."

Nana turned her gaze toward Snake, not particularly interested in listening to Santa's complaints. He was slumped against the back of the pew and his head leaned awkwardly to the left. The strange position simply wasn't suited to someone as refined and proper as Snake, though, perhaps Santa would sit in such a fashion.

"We just ended up makin' a ton of extra work for ourselves, you kn-" The silver-haired male stopped abruptly in the middle of his sentence after realizing that Nana didn't seem to be paying attention to him. "You're not listening, are you?"

"Not really." She confessed, giving a half-hearted shrug.

He glared at her with mock disgust. "…Women."

"…Men." She retorted, mocking him.

"Okay. Yeah, whatever. Moving on…" Santa rolled his eyes and strode over to the coffin. "Just in case you forgot, we've got work to do."

Nana ran her hand through her golden locks, mildly annoyed. He'd always had a bad habit of starting something and then blaming it on her when he wasn't satisfied with the results. "Okay, _boss_. " Her tone was dripping with sarcasm. "How is this going to work then?"

"There is no way in Hell I'm lettin' you see any guy besides me in just boxers, so I'll do the swap by myself."

"Hmph. You're just saying that because you're afraid that Snake's bigger than you. He does have large hands, after all." A smirk played out across her mouth as she teased him, causing Santa to flush red and turn away.

"…That's not true!" He protested, clenching his fists so tightly that his knuckles lost their color. It was obvious that he was lying, or at least partially. In reality, there was some truth to his words; Santa was a somewhat jealous person, especially in situations where Nana was involved. She was his everything, and he wasn't about let to another man take her away. "We're done talking about this." With this declaration, Santa entered a series of eight numbers into a keypad on the side of the large wooden coffin, which he was now standing next to. There was the sound of metal clicking, and then a horrid creaking as Santa forced the lid upwards. Inside laid a man, clothed in black robes with red accents. His somewhat long and fringed brown hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat.

"Unh…" The mysterious man groaned due to the sudden appearance of light, and attempted to flop around to change his position, but he ended up with his face pressed uncomfortably against the floor of the coffin. He had obviously been drugged.

With an irritated groan, Santa hoisted the man out of the coffin and hauled him to the middle of the room. He did the same with Snake, though the process was executed with more caution and concern. "Turn around." He gave the instructions to Nana without turning to look at her.

"Alright." Nana shifted her body to the side and rotated her head so she gazed upon the larger of the two nine doors.

The rustling of fabric began to emanate from the other side of the room, and Nana couldn't help but imagine the scenario. Santa, no doubt, would have been very angry, had he known, but Nana had no intention of telling him.

Abruptly, the room fell silent.

"This is just fucking…messed up." Santa sighed in exasperation.

"What are you talking about? Are they really that much bigger than you?" Nana joked playfully.

Santa was not in the mood to fool around. "Will you stop bringing that up? That's not even what I was talking about."

"Well? What was it then?"

"It's…their boxers. They're fucking weird."

"Tell me what they look like."

"…Trust me, you don't wanna know."

"But now that you said something, I _really_ want to know!"

Santa rolled his eyes. He knew that there was no point in continuing the argument; he'd been defeated. "Alright, alright. I give up. But don't go sayin' that I didn't warn you!" Santa paused for a moment before continuing, carefully considering how he would describe the image to her. "Well…Snake's aren't _that_ bad. They're pink with red hearts, but they still kinda freak me out."

"Hm. I didn't know that Nonalee was into that kind of thing." Nana muttered to herself.

"What was that?" Santa questioned.

"Um, nothing. What about the other guy?"

"…Are you really sure you want to know?"

Nana wondered if they were truly that bad, since Santa seemed dead-set against telling her what they looked like. "How weird could they really be?"

"Fine, fine. They have…a rocket ship on them."

"That's not strange at-"

"That's not it." Santa interrupted. "The rocket ship is on his…"

"Ewwwwwwww! That's disgusting!" Nana whined. An image of the mystery man with "rocket ship" boxers entered into her mind, and it wouldn't leave. "…I wish you hadn't told me." Nana admitted.

"I told you so." Santa teased defiantly.


End file.
